Officials with Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas were in Harrisburg today to begin the job of packing up the estimated 10,000 Western and American Indian items collected by Mayor Stephen R. Reed for a now-canceled museum.

Jeb Stuart, a city consultant in charge of coordinating the sale, said the packing job was expected to take most of the weekend.

The collection will be shipped to Dallas in an armored tractor-trailer driven by armed and bonded security guards. There, the pieces will be cleaned, photographed and cataloged for sale at a Dallas auction in late October.

Faced with a city fiscal crisis, Reed agreed to sell the $8 million collection, which he purchased using revenue from the Harrisburg Authority, the city agency that owns Harrisburg's trash incinerator and other utilities. The auction proceeds will be used to reduce a budget deficit that piled up last year.